Borderland Unionism: Latina Activism in Ybor City and Tampa, Florida, 1935–1937

Abstract

Abstract This article examines the intersections of gender, labor, and political organizing in Tampa and Ybor City, Florida from 1935 to 1937. By following the personal and professional evolution of labor leader Luisa Moreno in the US South, this article explores the reciprocal relationship between Latina tobacco workers and Moreno’s approach to labor unionism and political mobilization. While Moreno arrived in Tampa prepared to unite workers across ideological and physical barriers, what she encountered was a borderland, a space where multiple groups asserted ultimate authority over place and people. Although the laws and legislation of the US government applied to those living in the city, their regulation depended on the actions of people who lived in the region and independently competed for influence and power. As a result of ethnic and racial boundaries in the city (not only between Anglos and people of color, but also between Latina/o and African American communities), Moreno adapted her strategy of traditional class-based unionism to the realities of this borderland and adopted a Latina-centric approach to labor organizing that joined international radicalism and grassroots interests to challenge the control of de jure and de facto Jim Crow exclusions.